February 7th 2025
Background
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) strives to meaningfully engage youth in substance use prevention efforts through global platforms, where young people can reflect on the impact of drug use, learn about effective evidence-based prevention approaches, and be encouraged to think of ways to be involved in prevention efforts in their communities. To further support active youths in turning their thoughts into action with practical tools and resources, UNODC has recently developed ‘Friends in Focus’, a new youth-based peer-to-peer prevention programme.
With Friends in Focus, young people will learn about preventive thinking for themselves and how they can disseminate it amongst their friends. Peer trainers will be trained to deliver multiple sessions to a group of peers, who are expected to have similar informal interactions with their friends. The sessions will be interactive in nature, and help youths to recognize risk and protective factors to drug use, critically reflect on information about drugs, examine social dynamics and normative beliefs, and learn how to act in situations of pressure.
Developed through extensive consultations with global experts of drug prevention and an active youth consultation group, Friends in Focus aims to empower young people aged 14 – 25 with the tools to become catalysts for prevention in their schools and communities. The 3-phase programme seeks to foster a culture of prevention through a cascade approach, starting with master trainers, extending to youth trainers, and then to their peer networks and friends. And with the recent completion of the prototype, UNODC will begin pre-piloting Friends in Focus in 2025 to test its feasibility and applicability in the real world.
First pre-pilot testing of Friends in Focus in Serbia
With the support of the government of Italy, Serbia will be the first country to roll-out Friends in Focus. With preparations underway since Q4 2024, Phase 1 (Training of Trainers; TOT) was held from 4 to 6 February 2025, in Belgrade, Serbia, through great collaboration and partnerships with the UNODC Regional Office for South Eastern Europe and the Municipality of Zvezdara in Belgrade. The Regional Office’s extensive experience in supporting youth-focused programmes (such as those of Lions Quest) enabled cohesive mapping of institutional networks and a tailored-approach to the design of the pre-pilot. And the Municipality of Zvezdara also had an important role in promoting the programme through outreach activities to recruit potential youth trainers, and also fostered relationships with local high schools to enable the recruitment of peers. Overall, these inter-agency partnerships reflect united fronts on investing in positive youth development as the foundation for effective prevention of drugs and other risky behaviours.
The 3-day Training of Trainers introduced future youth trainers to the programme’s aims and theory, whilst also covering essential activities from the sessions they will later on deliver themselves. Youths reflected on vulnerabilities to drug use and how they can be addressed, and critically reflected on misperceptions and normative beliefs through interactive exercises and games. They also delved into the concept of peer selection, and the role that group dynamics can have in reinforcing the effect of peer selection. Also, to support them with facilitating sessions as a trainer, participants presented mock sessions to each other to try out the delivery themselves and provided each other feedback. Youths focused not only on learning about substantive content, but they also learned how to process activities, facilitate discussions, and logistically prepare for future sessions.
Armed with knowledge and skills acquired during the training, youth trainers will embark on their own implementation of Friends in Focus with the support of the UNODC Programme Office in Serbia, the Municipality of Zvezdara, support coaches, and participating schools. The high-level of energy and enthusiasm witnessed throughout the 3-day training provided a glimpse into positive outlooks ahead, with youths resonating with the key messages and directly experiencing how the seemingly ‘just-for-fun’ activities can be extrapolated into reflections of real life situations.
This milestone in Serbia initiated the transition from theoretical development to practical implementation, and will pave the way for lessons learnt to feedback into improvements of Friends in Focus and propel it towards a scale up. UNODC looks forward to engaging with more youths around the world in supporting their active roles of ‘leading by doing’ through the new Friends in Focus programme. Please click on the following for more information about Friends in Focus.
